Lighting is a critical component of any interior space, such as commercial, office, retail and domestic space, and has been demonstrated to have an impact on productivity and mood. Designing lighting systems for illuminating an entire room or space can prove challenging, however, depending on the architecture of the room or building, ambient exterior light and other features. For instance, doorways, walls, electrical and pipe chases, air vents, structural support beams or columns, and other architectural elements in a room can restrict where light fixtures can be installed. Each room or space will have different dimensions and architectural elements with which to contend. Measurements specified in architectural drawings are not always translated to buildings once built, which may not be level or may have bowed, warped or misaligned walls, floors or other architectural components. These discrepancies can lead to further downstream miscalculations, which can prevent standard sized fixtures from fitting properly. In extreme cases, it can prevent a light fixture from being used altogether.
Smaller or discrete light fixtures are often employed in lighting systems, since they are less likely to be individually impacted by discrepancies in spacing and difficulties in lighting system design. However, this frequently means that the light fixtures are spaced apart to cover an entire room or area. Dead spots often exist in the space between light fixtures, and result in inconsistent or insufficient lighting. This can be particularly problematic at edges of a space, such as where the ceiling and wall meet, since ceiling-mounted light fixtures do not extend all the way to the wall.
Efforts have been made to address the need for flexibility in the field when installing light fixtures to suit a particular room, while also avoiding dark areas. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,624,178 to Lee describes a light fixture with a telescoping housing for soffit downlighting applications. The housing is adjusted in the field to accommodate a particular sized opening, and a slide having a series of incandescent bulbs mounted thereto is fitted in the housing. The location of the slide within the housing can be changed to direct the light to particular areas. However, because the slide is movable within the housing, there is still space between the bulbs and the edges of the housing which can lead to dark spots.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,726 to Barton addresses the issue of dark areas between fluorescent bulbs. Specifically, two or more fluorescent lamp housings are positioned adjacent to one another at their respective terminal ends, such that an entire space can be covered and illuminated, and shadowing effects caused by spaces between the ends of lamps is avoided. However, Barton requires the use of standard sized fluorescent bulbs, which may not be suitable for every room. For instance, a room may not be divisible by the measure of the standard sized fluorescent bulb, resulting in space at the edges of the room where the fluorescent lamp housings of Barton would not fit. In addition, the adjacent fluorescent bulbs create bright spots where they align. This is the opposite of the dark areas previously addressed as an obstacle to be avoided, but overly bright areas can also be problematic. For instance, merely the change in luminosity across an area or room can cause the iris of the eye to have to constantly adjust to varying levels of brightness, leading to fatigue and strain. This can result from dark spots, bright spots or both.
Therefore, there still remains a need for providing consistent lighting across a room that can be accomplished in a custom manner to accommodate different rooms with different architectural needs.